People From Alabama

"The American Dream can come in many different ways for many different people. It doesn't have to come in the way they explain it to you. Now, the American Dream can come if a guy hits the lottery. Who in the world thought he would hit a lottery? That's the American Dream for him. But I look at it from day one, moving up the ladder, and moving up the ladder. Now you get to the top of the ladder and you have to look back. How did you get to that ladder? To me, that's the American Dream."

"Gee, I've been asked hundreds of questions about that catch in the first game of the World Series. The one that Vic Wertz hit for Cleveland. Was it my best catch? How did I play it? Honestly, I don't rate 'em—I just try to catch 'em. When he hit the ball, I just started toward the place it was heading. And I got there."

"I would say the main thing in any young kid's life is education. Even if a guy is prejudiced, he can be educated to understand why he is prejudiced. Education plays a great role in all life, whether you're black or white. You've got to go to high school, you've got to go to college. When you come out of college or high school, you can play sports. If you ever get hurt, they can't take that brain away from you, you've got that."

"I'm a very lucky guy. I had so many people help me over the years that I never had many problems. If I had a problem, I could sit down with someone and they would explain the problem to me, and the problem become like a baseball game. You're at home plate now, how do you get to first? How do you get to second? How do you get to third? When you get back to home, your problem is solved. That's the way I view the business world, I view it as a baseball game. Once you start thinking the way you've been taught to think over so many years, you have no problems."

"The greatest challenge I think is adjusting to not playing baseball. The reason for that is that I had to come out of baseball and come into the business world, not being a college graduate, not being educated to come into the business world the way I should have. And, instead of people doing things for me, I had to do things for myself. That was scary for me."

"I think the key to that particular play was the throw. I knew I had the ball all the time. In my mind, because I was so cocky at that particular time when I was young, whatever went in the air I felt that I could catch. That's how sure I would be about myself. When the ball went up I had no idea that I wasn't going to catch the ball. As I'm running -- I'm running backwards and I'm saying to myself, "How am I going to get this ball back into the infield?""

"People talk about that catch and, I've said this many times, that I've made better catches than that many times in regular season. But of course in my time, you didn't have a lot of television during the regular season. A lot of people didn't see me do a lot of things."

"I never had any training. I never had a guy say to me, "Do it this way, do it that way." When I was growing up, I was the last guy to get picked for every team that I was on. If they needed a pitcher, I pitched. If there was a catcher needed, I caught. First baseman, shortstop, whatever position they needed, that's what I played. I felt I was the best all-around athlete on that particular team. Most of them couldn't do that, everybody wanted to play a position. It didn't matter what position I played. I just had fun and enjoyed it."

"I just felt baseball was a beautiful game, especially at night. The sun -- I mean, you had the lights out there and all you do is go out there, and you're out there by yourself in center field, and it's just a beautiful game. And, I just felt that it was such a beautiful game that I just wanted to play it forever, you know."

"Richie Allen was—and still is—a Hall of Famer as far as I'm concerned."

"He could hit a ball farther than anybody that I've seen."

"Herman didn't interfere with me. He gave me that authority. I managed the field. Whatever went on on the field, I did it. I did every . . . thing. Nowadays, the manager tells everybody what to do, the manager does everything. That's why you see this [pantomiming a catcher repeatedly glancing over at the dugout]. When we played, we just looked on the field. Usually it was an infielder. The Dodgers were run by Pee Wee. Alston just sat in the dugout. Usually it was an infielder, but Herman gave me the authority."

"I managed the field when I played. The other players played off me, like a quarterback. One, two, three. Fastball, breaking ball, change. [...] I set the defenses, infield and outfield, and I called the pitches. We had one rule: if you didn't follow what I said, you didn't play. [...] The catcher, Dick Dietz, would stand up. He'd look at me. I'd give the signal, then he'd crouch down and give it to the pitcher. The pitcher could turn to me and rub it off if he didn't like it. [...] When every guy came up to bat, I would set up a defense for that hitter and I would give one sign to the catcher. If I called for a fastball, it didn't mean the pitcher was going to throw all fastballs. That meant, Make this guy hit a fastball. Let him see a breaking ball, but make him hit a fastball. Then you set the defense according to how he pitches. With Gaylord or Marichal, if they say, "I'm going to make him hit a fastball," they make him hit a fastball. If I got a pitcher to play with me, 90 per cent of the time we could catch that ball. We all played together. Infield, outfield, together."

"I wasn't the best hitter, Ted Williams was. I wasn't the best fielder, Roberto Clemente was. I wasn't the best base stealer, was. But I was among the best in everything."

"That’s not like me, but I was giving my honest opinion. It doesn’t sound too good, though. [As for the second best player,] I’d have to say Roberto Clemente. He could do anything with the bat and in the field. And then there’s Cesar Cedeno. I don’t know why he hasn’t put it all together. He can do it all."

"I think I was the best ballplayer I’ve ever seen. I feel nobody in the world could do what I could do on a baseball field. I hope I’m not saying anything wrong, but you have to think you’re the best. The next one would be Roberto Clemente."

"You're not from New York, are you? You can't be from New York. Well, when I broke in, I didn't know many people by name so I would just say, "Say, hey," and the writers picked that up. The writers here in New York can make anything happen, so they made that happen."

"Aw-Kay Vaughan?! Aw-kay Vaughan?! Oh my God, Ralph, please ... I've hit 600 and some home runs. Don't be givin' me no Aw-kay Vaughan, please!"

"Mays said he thought maybe the Skinner catch was a bit better than yesterday's, as well as a catch he made on a ball hit this season by Gus Bell of the Cincinnati Reds. "But I don't want to compare 'em," said Willie. "I'm just a ballplayer, not a sports writer. I don't compare 'em; I just catch 'em.""

"Didn't come up here to read. Came up here to hit."

"I never smile when I have a bat in my hands. That's when you've got to be serious. When I get out on the field, nothing's a joke to me. I don't feel like I should walk around with a smile on my face."

"I like those lefties, but when you're hitting, all pitchers look alike. I don't care too much who's throwing or what he throws. When my timing is off, I have trouble; when it ain't, I don't."

"[W]hen I was a little boy, my daddy said to me, "Henry, never hurry unless you have to." I've remembered that all my life and here I am in the major leagues."

"Hello, Stonefingers."

"He was my favorite hitter. He could do almost anything he wanted to do at bat. He was a scientific hitter. I've seen him deliberately go for the home run late in a game and get it. Even if it meant pulling an outside pitch, he'd pull because he'd made up his mind to do it. Another thing I liked about him was the power he generated when he hit the ball between the infielders. This is a sure sign of a great hitter."

"Terrible. It took me 17 years to get three thousand hits in baseball. I did it in one afternoon on the golf course."

"I'm not trying to make anyone forget the Babe; but only to remember Hank Aaron."

"There wasn't any pitcher I felt I couldn't get a hit off."

"When he was healthy, there was nobody better than Campanella as both a catcher and a hitter. But I played with Del Crandall a long time and he was a match for anybody defensively."

"The way I see it, it's a great thing to be the man who hit the most home runs, but it's a greater thing to be the man who did the most with the home runs he hit. So as long as there's a chance that maybe I can hammer out a little justice now and then, or a little opportunity here and there, I intend to do as I always have — keep swinging."

"Guessing what the pitcher is going to throw is 80 percent of being a successful hitter. The other 20 percent is just execution. The mental aspects of hitting were especially important to me. I was strictly a guess hitter, which meant I had to have a thorough knowledge of every pitcher I came up against and develop a strategy for hitting him. My method was to identify the pitches a certain pitcher had and eliminate all but one or two and then wait for them. One advantage I had was quick wrists. Another advantage — and one that all good hitters have — was my eyesight. Sometimes I could read the pitcher's grip on the ball before he ever released it and be able to tell what pitch he was throwing. I never worried about the fastball. They couldn't throw it past me, none of them."

"In the decades to come, the memory of the scene might blur. But the memory of the sound will remain with everyone who was here. Not the sound of the cheers, or the sound of Henry Aaron saying "I'm thankful to God it's all over," but the sound of Henry Aaron's bat when it hit the baseball tonight... At home plate, surrounded by an ovation that came down around him as if it were a waterfall of appreciation, he was met by his teammates who attempted to lift him onto their shoulders. But he slipped off into the arms of his father Herbert Sr., and his mother Estella, who had hurried out of the special box for the Aaron family near the Braves' dugout. "I never knew," Aaron would say later," that my mother could hug so tight.""

"Sure, Aaron's a bad-ball hitter and always will be, but it would be a mistake to try to change him. Clemente got only 13 bases on balls all last season, so this spring we tried to get him to look over the pitches more carefully. He got to taking strikes and got himself so fouled up generally that we told him to forget the whole thing and go back to doing what comes naturally. You don't try to change a hitter like Aaron. In my book he's a better hitter than Willie Mays. He's going to get better, too. He'll be the one to beat for the batting championship for ten years, maybe more. He's the first N.L. player since Bill Terry with something better than an outside chance to hit .400 before he's through."

"I would have to say myself, but it would not look good for me to say it. I just have confidence I am the best because I believe in myself. If I had to pick another player, it would be Hank Aaron. He does everything so well."

"Sure, Henry Aaron has a hitting weakness. It's a pitch with something on it right across the letters and in close. But that's the batting weakness of every great hitter, regardless of what else he can or can't hit."

"There were now men on first and second. The batter was Henry Aaron. I walked him on four straight balls, which was probably the smartest thing I did all year. There have been many times since when I wished I had been wild enough to walk Henry Aaron. I'm usually backing up third as I am wishing it."

"It was this penchant for power hitting to the "wrong" field that caused Stan Musial to describe Aaron as an "arrogant" hitter. "He thinks there's nothing he can't hit,' says Musial. "He'll have to learn there are some pitches no hitter can afford to go for. He still has something to learn about the strike zone.""

"Aaron is the only man in baseball who can fall asleep between pitches, then wake up and knock the next one out of the park."

"It worked out just right. I've had to try to catch Aaron virtually all my career. But he's the home run king, so that means he's the cleanup hitter. That means I got into the Hall of Fame before he did."

"If we are to be a great democracy, we must all take an active role in our democracy. We must do democracy. That goes far beyond simply casting your vote. We must all actively champion the causes that ensure the common good."

"The world would not have had a Barack Obama or a Hillary Clinton if it had not been for my father's movement 40 years ago. To elect Senator Obama would be aproportion of that dream fulfilled. I believe we can do that if we elect the right leader."

"I've heard from people that the first time you see Pat, you think you have an angle and you don't...He's such an explosive player that there are times when there's people around him and he either outruns the angle or makes somebody miss...Pat was able to do everything, and I've said this many times, I think Pat White is one of the best players in the country and he gets a chance to prove it every week."

"He's probably the fastest guy on the field at any time...And he's the quarterback."

"I TOOK THE PIECES YOU THREW AWAY AND PUT THEM TOGATHER [sic] BY NIGHT AND DAY WASHED BY RAIN DRIED BY SUN A MILLION PIECES ALL IN ONE"

"I will not quit until I am a five-times world champion."

"Actually, no one can understand the action of Mrs. Parks unless he realizes that eventually the cup of endurance runs over, and the human personality cries out, 'I can take it no longer.'"

"Then, as now, getting arrested or jailed or associated with criminality in any fashion, whether in a hoodie or a suit and tie, was bound to upset the political establishment. When Black Lives Matter activists blocked traffic and engaged in other acts of mass civil disobedience, many white liberals and older black activists charged that King wouldn’t have approved of the type of disruption these protests caused. While the likes of King and Rosa Parks are now celebrated for their acts of defiance, their protests were no less controversial at the time, even within the civil-rights movement."

"One element of imperial history is that events tend to be seen as caused by extraordinary personalities acting on one another without showing us the social roots and contexts of those actions. For example, many of the great discoveries and inventions we are taught about in elementary and high school were being pursued by many people at once, but the individual who received the patent is described as a lone explorer rather than part of a group effort. Rosa Parks didn't "get tired" one day and start the Montgomery bus boycott. She was a trained organizer, and her role, as well as the time and place of the boycott, was the result of careful planning by a group of civil rights activists. Just as medicinal history must restore individuality to anonymous masses of people, it must also restore social context to individuals singled out as the actors of history."

"Rosa Parks dreams about/a bus in Jerusalem."

"What would we in this country know about civil disobedience had Rosa Parks not refused to give up a seat she had a right to? (And what do we know about it now that anti-abortion people are using our tactics?) We learn through doing. Bernice Johnson Reagon has said we're stumbling because we have to take the next step."